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Helsinki ecosystem to ease market entry for health-focused companies

Organisations in Helsinki have joined forces to further strengthen the city’s testbed activities.Artem Podrez / Pexels

The City of Helsinki, HUS Helsinki University Hospital and Metropolia University of Applied Sciences have created an ecosystem to remove hurdles from the research and testing path of health-focused companies.

Known as Health Proof Helsinki, the ecosystem promises to provide a new kind of cooperative and needs-based research, development, innovation and teaching platform for health and wellbeing companies.

The companies will be able to develop and test their solutions at the simulation hospital of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, leverage resources from the social and healthcare services division of the City of Helsinki, and utilise the specialist services of HUS Helsinki University Hospital.

The product development process of companies conducting testing on the platform will be verified and validated collaboratively within the ecosystem.

Marja-Leena Rinkineva, head of economic development at the City of Helsinki, said the Finnish capital wants to strengthen its attractiveness as a business and research environment for healthcare companies while promoting the growth and internationalisation of the sector.

“The operations will further strengthen the city’s testbed activities,” she added.

The ecosystem is an attempt to respond to challenges faced by the social and healthcare sector due to population ageing and sliding birth rates.

“There is currently a greater need for wellbeing and health technology solutions than ever before,” argued Minna Elomaa-Krapu, innovation director at Metropolia. “At Metropolia, we want to assume a strong role as a strengthener of wellbeing and health technology companies’ business and RDI knowhow.”

By: Aleksi Teivainen
18.10.2022